Video Analysis

I'm going to look at 2 different videos, one from the artist we've chosen and one other from the same genre. In analysing the genre, representation, narrative, audience and how the video communicates a meaning I will be able to further my knowledge of how music videos in this genre are constructed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjZRAvsZf1g is the first video I'm going to look at. It is Wu-Tang Clan - "Cream"
The genre of the video is Hip-hop/rap and is recognisable not only because of the style of music but the way they dress and act in the video, which is quite stereotypical of a hip-hop/rap group. The Wu-Tang Clan is made up of all black members. In this video they are represented in quite a stereotypical way. They are shown dealing drugs and living/hanging out on the streets. The people in the video wear stereotypical clothing like hoodies, hats and big coats while having a 'hip-hop posture' of waving their arms around while rapping. They are shown in an urban setting with graffiti on the walls and barrel fires. The singers are wearing 'bling' which is a stereotype of rappers, that they spend all their money on over the top jewelry. There is also a lot of aggression in the video through facial features and movements which is typical of a rap video and stereotypical of black people in particular, as well as this they are together like a gang and gambling together in the video which again is a conception of black people and rappers. Most videos in the rap genre don't have a narrative and this video follows this convention and has very little story. Having the focus on the lyrics and singers themselves allowing them to show off their lifestyle. The Audience of a video like would no doubt be people that would relate to the lifestyle that the rappers are promoting. So typically black people that can connect to the struggle that is being talked about in the song as well the way the video portrays their lives. The video was released in 1994 and would have been showing the struggle of black people in the 90s. Their isn't a clear story in the video and therefore its hard to establish a meaning that it was trying to communicate however I think it shows the harder times that people like Wu-Tang Clan would have had to go through before they found success and the types of things they had to do to get by, like drug dealing and being in gangs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7UnhSz1fSQ Is the second video I'm going to look at. It is Beastie Boys - Intergalactic.
The genre of this video, again, is hip hop and is easily recognisable because of the beats and type of music produced. In this video the representation is quite different to that of Wu-Tang Clan's Cream as the rappers are white. I wanted to look at this video because it has given me lots of ideas about how to do our music video. There is only 3 artists in the video as opposed to the 9 in Wu-Tang Clan's. White people aren't necessarily represented in any way in this video except that it challenges common stereotypes that white people cant rap. The Beastie Boys are acting a bit goofy which can be a stereotype of white people, that they are kind of geeky. The video's narrative shows the 3 artists crash landing on earth from space and walking around New York city as 'Spacemen'. This could represent the feeling that lots of hip hop and rap artists felt when it was first released as a mainstream genre. The feeling weird and like an alien because people weren't used to the music and thought it was strange. It's a playful video that uses classic Sci-Fi filmic qualities like the giant robot. This makes it more accessible to more people as its easily identifiable with. This video appeals to a larger audience than that of Cream because its more accessible to the masses. Its got humor and a familiar style to lots of films. In contrast to Wu-Tang Clan's very serious video featuring the 'nitty gritty' life of a rapper. While the story is quite funny and wacky, the video still conveys a message about attitudes towards hip hop and rap at the time of it being made. The story and imagery is used to show that the artists, The Beastie Boys, are from out of this world and came to earth and shocked people. (With their music) This is also shown by the robot destroying the city, this could represent the chaos that genre of music caused when it first came about. Also a retro style of Sci-Fi is used, using miniature sets to make the robot look massive. This could represent people being stuck in the 'old days' and need to be less old fashioned when it comes to accepting new things (Their music)

Target Audience

These are some magazines that Wu-Tang Clan have been on the cover of.

The face was a music magazine that featured everyone from Paul Weller to Puff Daddy and was for anyone that loved music. It was hard to find any evidence of the target audience of this magazine but it was quite a mainstream magazine which shows that Wu-Tang Clan were widely enough received to make it on the cover.

The Source was another magazine I found them on the cover of but again it was hard to find any facts or statistics as to who the readers actually were. What I do know is that its described as "the Bible of Hip-Hop Music, Culture & Politics". On the website there are links to events, The Source's own radio show, fashion among others. All this makes me think that the target audience of the magazine is young and has not only an interest in hip hop music but the style and culture involved with it as well.

The main magazine I'm going to look at is Rolling Stone as it had the most information available as to the readers of the magazine. As well as being one of the most famous magazines Wu-Tang Clan featured on.

Here is a screen shot of the information I found on the readers of Rolling Stone.

100% of readers are Adults (18+) with the majority of 58% of them being male. Of the readers 86% of them are 18-49 with an overall median age of 31.5 years old. The median household income is $68,372 with the median individual employment income being $33,008. In total 80%of readers are on $30,000+ HHI. Most readers are employed having gone to college. As well as being single.

The majority of readers are white with 75% and A/B county with 80%.

A typical reader would be a white 31 year old male earning $33,008 a year, living by himself who is interested in music and music culture.

This is a screen shot of some of the Wu-Tang Clan's fans on Myspace. And below that are 4 random people that I chose to look at to see if there was a correlation between the people that listen to Wu-Tang Clan and race, gender, age, where they are from.

These are 4 randomly chosen fans of the Wu Tang Clan Myspace site, each is very different in terms of ethnicity, style, gender and age.

20 year old white male from California.

30 year old white female from Kentucky

27 year old white male from USA

32 year old Hawaiian female.

There wasn't a clear 'Type' of person that likes their music. Their target audience seems to be very diverse. From young to old, from black to white and from any kind of background.

Also I created a facebook page asking people to leave details of who they are and why they like Wu-Tang Clan. Here is the link. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=155074551182678&v=wall.

Overall people seem to like Wu-Tang Clan because of the distinct style of music and unique lyrics. Lots of different people commented explaining why they like them, adding the conclusion that their isn't one type of person that particularly likes Wu-Tang Clan. Lots of different ages, from 13 - 22 commented saying they liked them. Both males and females were pretty equally represented as well. Also lots of different backgrounds. From American, to British, To Zimbabwean.

Permission

Copyright is important to the music industry because it prevents music theft. Also it stops plagerism and allows artists to protect their intellectual property. This upholds the music industry as it stops artists not getting paid for their work and hsving their work taken and used by other people without permission.

This is a letter sent to Universal to ask permission to use Protect Ya Neck (The Jumpoff) in our music video.

Song Choice

My group has decided to create a music video for the Wu Tang Clan song Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off). We chose this song becuase we all have a love for the music genre and band as well as wanting to use a song that we could create a music video easily and effectively while challanging media stereotypes like gender and race.

We looked at other hip hop and rap songs like songs by House of Pain, Other Wu Tang Clan songs and Beastie Boys songs but rejected them all becuase we wanted a balance of up beat music and powerful, easily sung lyrics. For us Protect Ya Neck did both these things and thats why we settled on this.

We also decided to cut the last few verses as they have too much swearing in them.

Here are the lyrics.